Monday, March 1, 2010

"Cayenne, Fare You Well"

Andy included a copy of his weekly e-mail to President Gamiette:

Dear President,
We had another awesome week in Cayenne! And the best part is that there is room for a lot of improvement! Normally those two sentences don't work together, however, this week they do. This week we found many inactives who decided to come back to church and some of them are potential Melchizedek priesthood holders! We have been working with inactives very hard this week. We have been teaching nearly every hour of each day. The improvement, however, comes in finding the balance between the large reactivation work that is going on and the investigators. The goal this week is to work with these inactives and find those that the Lord has thoughtfully put around them. I know that there are many prepared elect around the inactives and new converts. Already this last week we received two references who I'm sure will be baptized in the next couple of weeks. They did not come to church unfortunately because it wasn't until last night that we taught them for the first time.

All In Cayenne is up to date. After our zone conference I made sure to be diligent every night with the area book...so that is up to date, and Elder Olsen and the other two new missionaries coming to Cayenne won't miss a beat!

The unity in the branch is doing much better as well. Our numbers don't show it, but we spent a lot of time teaching active members the doctrines behind baptism, the sacrament, and all church functions. As I said last week, the language barriers have upset some members that have not understood. Elder Rodriguez and I prayed really hard to be able to love the members who had been much less than patient. And it was so easy, after praying for that, to teach them with love and understanding, and then to help them understand. This last Sunday was much much more edifying and the spirit of unity was strongly present. The Branch is in good hands and the last touches before I leave will be updating 40 Days.

I want to thank you President for the chance I have had to serve in Cayenne and especially with Elder Rodriguez. I have loved my companion as well as Cayenne. I m excited to try to work in Abymes...from what you said it seems that the members need some inspiration to work and serve the Lord. I pray that the Lord will strengthen me and Elder Evans so that we may really strengthen that branch.

Elder Neff


The Fogas Family in Cayenne

Andy wrote to us:

Hey Mom and Dad, thanks for the emails

Its always good to hear from you two...

This week was much much better. The Lord really prepared me for the transfer call this week that I would be leaving. I have not yet had to say goodbye to these families but I have almost shed a few tears already......ALMOST haha. I was pretty depressed when I heard from the Collings that I would be going back to Guadeloupe. I was loving my time here. The Spanish, the people, the car! Oh wait the car sucks....but really...I was depressed until President called me the day after and explained why he wanted to change. He said he really needs me to work with the members in Abymes...the branch is not doing any missionary work, and they have been stagnant the last few months....President's love, faith, and encouragement was really motivating. Right now I'm stoked to go to Abymes and tear it up! I'm going to work my tail off....KICK BUTT MAN!....This whole next transfer, I will never wake up after 5, and I'll never miss a day of studying from the Book of Mormon.

I have really appreciated the tender mercies of the Lord especially at the end of this week.... At the beginning of the week like my email showed, I was really worrying about the well-being of the branch....members were complaining, and there was just not a sense of unity. All of the members loved the missionaries, and it was almost like it was that love that was holding it together...we were just the intermediaries for the French and Spanish speaking people. Ok, I guess I make it sound like a war, and it was nothing like that, but they just were not meshing. And I don't blame them! Language barriers are hard! But I remembered back to when I just started speaking French all the time, and it was really hard to have a good relationship with my companions without being able to really communicate. I remember that I read Moroni 7:48, which tells us we must pray to have a pure love of Christ. As I did that, and I prayed to love my companion as Christ would I began to understand and to have great patience with my companion. Obviously those were two things this branch needs, so Elder Rodriguez and I began sharing that message with a couple members. Those that we taught this great principal of love, and that we challenged to pray for it and pray to have patience with the leaders of the church...we found that it works. One member that was having a problem with our Branch President didn't come to church last week. We passed by his house twice this week. The first time we shared that message the man was prideful, not understanding, and ornery... and the next we came and the spirit was in His Home, He was smiling, and he told us, "Elders! I talked with the Branch President. I think we understand each other now!" He was at church yesterday and back to normal.

There were many more cases like that, and I'm so grateful the Lord prepared me to leave with such a great week.

Well, it sounds like I'm gonna start getting to hear about a lot of homecomings... TOMMY, BOX, and then GARR? Or who? Chas only has two more transfers...time is flying!

Let everyone know my mail address will be once again at the Colling's address.

Andy and Cesar at Baptismal Service

1 comment:

Amy said...

I wanna see the bike picture De mentioned.